


A Worse Plan than Wings of Feathers and Glue

by Lets_Get_Dramatic



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: 1920s AU, 1930s AU, A Ridiculous Amount of Research for How Short a Fic This is, Gen, Just so we're all clear: the Stock Market Crash happened on October 29th 1929, Late twenties early thirties lawyers, Leads up to the Stock Market Crash, Transition from the Roaring 20s to the Great Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-09 22:45:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6926992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lets_Get_Dramatic/pseuds/Lets_Get_Dramatic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s the 1930s. Well, actually, it’s 1929, and in five days, the world as we know it will burn. Ready? 5…4…3…2…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Five Days (Thursday)

October 24, 1929. Stock prices had been falling since the 18th, but now people were starting to panic in genuine. Hamilton witnessed 12,894,650 shares of stock were traded in a frantic flurry of motion. It was a new record. Unease coursed through him like blood, but at this point all anyone could do was their damndest to stabilize the market. It wouldn’t do any good to start planning for the future when the future was so unclear.


	2. Four Days (Friday)

Burr would have liked better lighting. All the same, speakeasies offered unique opportunities. Not the alcohol, you didn’t really need to go to a speakeasy for that. You could just as easily go to church, or pick up some ‘grape juice’ on the verge of fermenting. No, what interested Burr about speakeasies were the opportunities. Conversation flowed, gossip, and not just the gossip of mothers and fathers on break. Gangsters and mobsters conglomerated here.

As a defense lawyer, he found it helpful to be ahead of the curve on what might be coming his way.

Hamilton remained unsold on the benefits, and only barely tolerated his business partner making use of such tactics. It was one thing to uphold every citizen's right to fair trial, but quite another to consort with the New York’s organized crime leaders. Hence, why he was late.

Burr almost sighed into his drink. Of course, Hamilton could have gotten caught up in work. It wouldn’t be the first time. But Burr would like to pick up his daughter from her piano lesson on time, if that wouldn’t be too much to ask.

Favor decided to smile on him, however, and it was only a few minutes later that Hamilton swept in. He scanned the joint before noticing Burr, and plunking down next to him. He brought the cold with him. Burr nodded in acknowledgement of his presence.

“Good afternoon, Aaron Burr, sir. Did you enjoy the rally?” Hamilton said. Burr shrugged.

“It helped,” he said, “but I can’t see it as anything more than a quick fix.” Hamilton grinned. A waitress momentarily distracted him when she took his order: a sandwich, fries, and whiskey. He quickly turned back to the conversation.

“How could it be anything else? A brief bid for more people buying stock at a party, great, but it doesn’t solve anything,” He said, quickly descending to rambling, “What’s really needed, is a sweeping systematic change. If the government had more say, imagine how different the situation would be!” Hamilton grinned. “A pinko like yourself can surely pull that off”

Burr put his drink down and smiled pleasantly.

“Keep your voice down.” His volume, cadence, posture- all spoke of someone perfectly at ease. Nothing but his glare gave away his displeasure. The red scare might be nine years past, but a rumor of communist affiliations could still put off perspective customers. And to him, everyone in this room was a perspective customer.

Hamilton’s grin only grew. Burr worried for a moment that he would continue down that road, but thankfully he switched subjects. Conversation turned to work, and briefly to personal life (how is Theo? Oh, that’s good). Then time was up, Hamilton left for home, Burr to pick up Theo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pinko was termed in 1925 to refer to members or just sympathizers with the communist party. It was termed in a magazine, like “reds and parlor pinks,” and from then until the late 1930s, pinko was the slang terminology. It was replaced by ‘commie’ during the second Red Scare.
> 
> Speaking of the Red Scare, the first Red Scare took place in 1919-1920, right after the Bolshevik Revolution. The Second one, the famous one, with the Soviet Union and McCarthyism and all that, is dated between 1947-1957.


	3. Three Days (Saturday)

There was something to be said for a wooden desk-chair set, a pile of paper, a fountain pen (worth every dime), and decent lighting. Right or wrong, it felt more of home than anything else here, this building he owned and inhabited with his wife and children.

Hamilton wrote as he thought, almost unconsciously. Problem(s), solution(s), how.

Problem: Economy. Specifically: Economic decline. Evidence: farmers experiencing serious recession, climbing debt, evidence for a bubble. Implication: All bubbles pop.

Problem: No one is listening. Not the people who will be most affected.

Counterpoint: problem is not disastrous for him, personally. Assets carefully shuffled around so they won’t be affected. Counterpoint: An economic disaster could be what people need to recognize the need for reform. People may be more willing to listen to less traditional viewpoints. If he plays his cards right, he can push some his ideas into the government’s very structure. He can streamline it, make it more efficient, he knows it. Centralize the power; grow the power of the government as a whole, not the power of the individuals in it. Hamilton disputes some points of fascism, but it is something he can certainly work with.

The longer he writes, the longer his sentences get, moving from outlines of thoughts to dissertations defending his ideas to drafts of the laws that would need to be implemented.

He writes late into the night, buzzing with ideas for how to change the country.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fountain pens existed at this time period, but wouldn’t really take off until the next decade. I feel like Hamilton would feel it was worth the investment.  
> On the subject of Hamilton, yes, he’s fascist/fascist sympathizer here. I don’t know, I feel like he might be. A note on fascism: fascism is based on an authoritarian nationalism that grew out of the ‘civilian military class’ that grew out of the First World War. Its priority was strengthening the national government, and giving that government increasing control over matters such as the economy. Which I feel Hamilton would agree with. Furthermore, as an ideology, it didn’t really fall out of favor until after the Second World War. As far as I can tell, communism was a more controversial political belief system at this time. Finally, I feel like Hamilton would fall in with some more extremist type ideologies. Not that a person can’t be fanatically committed to a ‘moderate’ ideology, but *shrugs*


	4. Two Days (Sunday)

The sermon finished, not a minute over schedule. Burr appreciated that. He walked with Theo out the front doors, into the crisp fall weather, taking an immediate right. They didn’t stop to talk to anyone. Maybe they nodded to a friend, but they kept it brisk. Since Theo’s mother died, they made it a habit to walk to her grave and bring her up to date on any happenings after church.

Burr didn’t know if the tradition would fade after Theodosia had been gone for longer than a year, but he didn’t care. He needed to keep talking to her. He thought (hoped) it did Theo some good, too. Theo, always a serious child, had only grown more taciturn since Theodosia’s death. She rarely smiled, but recently seemed to like having a few minutes alone with just her mother to talk. The first couple times she had cried, but what else could be expected?

Today, the graveyard was quiet, except for the rushing of leaves. It should have made it creepy, but the sun was high and the birds sang. It felt more peaceful than anything. Theo pulled his hand, not intentionally, just a result of her walking slightly faster. He smiled to himself. They walked among tombstones, mostly plaques on the ground until they reached Theodosia’s grave. Burr stooped and swept some leaves off the front while Theo waited patiently. Burr glanced at her.

“Would you like to go first?” He asked. She nodded solemnly. He smiled and backed away a few yards. Out of earshot, but not sight.

Theo sat in front of the tombstone, legs crossed. Occasionally she gestured. Once, Burr thought she must have been telling a funny story, because her arms swept around in large circular patterns. When she was done, maybe five to ten minutes later, she stood up and brushed herself off. Turned, and looked for him. When she met his eye, Burr walked back over and picked her up. Maybe Theo would soon be too old to be picked up, at five years old, but she was a light child, so…whatever. It startled a smile out her.

“Did you tell Mom about the Halloween party?” He asked her.

“Yes. But I think I forgot something,” She said, brow furrowing.

“Did you tell her you get to go this year?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell her about the treats?”

“Yes.”

“How about the music?”

Theo drew a sharp breath.

“The dancing! I forgot to tell Mom about the dancing!” She started squirming, and Burr put her down. “Mom! There’s going to be swing dancing at the party! Dad promised I can try some out too!”

They talked a bit, together, about the upcoming Halloween party . It was Theo’s first. She was a more than a bit young, but it wasn’t like she would be exposed to anything scandalous (Burr had double checked with the hosts). And Burr wanted something different; something new added to Theo’s life rather than just subtracted from it.

When Theo went off to explore some of the other graves while her father talked to her mother, Burr commented,

“Maybe I should have just gotten her a pet.” Though a pet could be expensive, and what if it died?

He only had so much time, though. He talked to Theodosia about the current economic state. Maybe salvageable, but it would take quite a bit of effort. What did she think should be done?

“Wish you were here,” he said, finished. As he stepped away, Theo came up beside him and took his hand so they could leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Halloween parties! So, trick or treating wasn’t an accepted thing until around the 1950s, 1960s when UNISEF used it as an opportunity to raise money, after a couple years of which the candy companies steepled their fingers together and were like, “this makes us money. Let us help this money making tradition continue”. But anyway, in the 1920s, Halloween was celebrated by parties in city hall and dances that were slanted towards adults. In the 1930s, the parties became a more privatized affair, extremely lavish, and exclusively for adults. (For anyone curious, in the 1940s the parties became more of a kid’s affair, since all the men were off fighting the war. A couple of decades later the adult party made a comeback)


	5. One Day (Monday)

Today stood as testament to the truly fickle nature of the weather, Hamilton thought. It was humid, if not warm. Dare he even say it…muggy. In one of the coldest Octobers in years. Ridiculous.

It made for terrible running. Unfortunately, he had to run if he wanted to be at work at a respectable hour. And he did. He might have overslept after working a touch too late, but he was determined for that not to inhibit him in any way. (He also intended to take a bit more care with that in the future. Yes, Eliza had warned him, but there is nothing quite like the experience of error to prompt a person onward.) Made it through the door, ten minutes to spare. He’d take it.

Then he took in the atmosphere. Considering theirs was a small office, and not a lot of people just milled around, ‘atmosphere’ other than professional, maybe clean, was hard to make. The secretary looked frazzled. And there was something else….something….the newspapers were missing. He nodded to the secretary and made his way around back. He stopped by Burr’s space.

“Hey,” He said, “Hear the news?” Hopefully he had. Burr looked up. He examined Hamilton before answering.

“Stock prices are falling again,” He said, terse. Hamilton frowned.

“What’s there to be done, then?”

Burr shrugged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's harder to find precise information about the weather than I would have thought. All I could muster the energy to find was that the years around this time were having some abnormally cold Octobers. Meh.


	6. October 29th

The future was crystal clear. That is to say, there was no future. Not that Burr could make out, anyway. Never mind falling, stock prices had dived off a cliff and splattered on the ground. The economy may have started to decline in September. The past handful of days it might have been unstable. Today it died. Billions of dollars, gone like smoke. He had always been careful with his money, spreading it, never all his eggs in one basket. Then the shelf with all the baskets on it broke.

Burr reminded himself that such dramatics were unhelpful. Still, the consequences swirled around in the back of his head. Nobody was going to be able to afford a lawyer, business would go down, they would lose a tremendous amount of money. That was added to the stocks lost, and the money that had disappeared into the banking system.

He had tucked Theo into bed not half an hour ago and was now sitting in the living room. Recessions tended to last two years or so. He had wanted Theo to go to one of the better schools, but they cost money. He might not be able to afford it until she was already embedded in a cheaper school system. She might not want to leave by then. He reminded himself he might be getting ahead of himself.

(It was hard not to feel that things had gone very wrong, very quickly, however.)

Burr’s thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. A hammering, really. He walked across the room and into the entry hall, answering the door.

It was Hamilton. Of course it was.

“Can you believe it?” Hamilton said, excitement lacing his voice, not waiting for Burr to answer. He stepped in, waving a paper in Burr’s face. “The stock market just burned out!”

“Do you care,” Burr said, “to explain why you find this so wonderful?”

“Oh, it’s terrible, for sure,” Hamilton said, trying to hold back his energy for a moment, “but the opportunity!”

Burr stared. Then he gestured towards the kitchen. As they walked, Hamilton explained his ideas further.

“This is what we needed! Well, not this specifically, but something like this! People will most certainly not be okay with the system staying the way it is. If anything can prompt them to change, it’s this! It’s a tragedy, but it also holds a lot of potential,” He grinned, or maybe it was a smirk, “Consider this, Burr: we might finally get a more communistic system”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> History of the Great Depression time! It really was so convenient; I wanted to write a fic on the five days leading up to the stock market crash, and then wouldn’t you know it, turns out those were the most important days. So stock prices reached their peak in August of 1929, before starting a slow descent. On October 24, people started freaking out, and sold their shares quickly and dirt cheap. Business realizing where this was going, and tried to stall if not stop it by buying up the shares and holding a moderate rally on October 25, a Friday. It stabilized the stock prices for the weekend. However, Monday the prices began to free fall again, and Tuesday, well Tuesday, the stock market crashed. 
> 
> Funny thing is, while both Burr and Hamilton realize something big has happened, even at the end here they don’t get just how big of a thing. As Burr mentioned here, the average recession lasts two years. The Great Depression lasted ten. Never mind sending Theo to a good elementary, middle, or high school, this won’t be over in time to send her to college. They realize this is going to be a terrible, god awful recession, and they’re smart for it, but it took people a couple years to figure out that this…wasn’t the average recession. This was like expecting a bad case of the common cold, and turning up with an advanced stage of tuberculosis. The medicine doesn’t seem to work, it doesn’t seem to be getting better on its own, and probably too late you realize you are a lot closer to dying than you thought. The Great Depression was terrifying in its spread of calamity and its unfamiliarity both. And here they stand on the brink of it, preparing to use it to make them fly. Amazing. They have no idea.


End file.
